After London eBook

He had commenced while the hawthorn was just putting
forth its first spray, when the thickets and the trees
were yet bare. Now the May bloom scented the
air, the forest was green, and his work approached
completion. There remained, indeed, but some final
shaping and rounding off, and the construction, or
rather cutting out, of a secret locker in the stern.
This locker was nothing more than a square aperture
chiselled out like a mortice, entering not from above
but parallel with the bottom, and was to be closed
with a tight-fitting piece of wood driven in by force
of mallet.

A little paint would then conceal the slight chinks,
and the boat might be examined in every possible way
without any trace of this hiding-place being observed.
The canoe was some eleven feet long, and nearly three
feet in the beam; it tapered at either end, so that
it might be propelled backwards or forwards without
turning, and stem and stern (interchangeable definitions
in this case) each rose a few inches higher than the
general gunwale. The sides were about two inches
thick, the bottom three, so that although dug out
from light wood the canoe was rather heavy.

At first Felix constructed a light shed of fir poles
roofed with spruce-fir branches over the log, so that
he might work sheltered from the bitter winds of the
early spring. As the warmth increased he had
taken the shed down, and now as the sun rose higher
was glad of the shade of an adjacent beech.

CHAPTER IV

THE CANOE

Felix had scarcely worked half an hour before Oliver
returned and threw himself on the ground at full length.
He had wearied of fishing, the delicate adjustment
of the tackle and the care necessary to keep the hook
and line from catching in the branches had quickly
proved too much for his patience. He lay on the
grass, his feet towards the stream which ran and bubbled
beneath, and watched Felix chipping out the block
intended to fit into the secret opening or locker.

“Is it nearly finished, then?” he said
presently. “What a time you have been at
it!”

“Nearly three months.”

“Why did you make it so big? It is too
big.”

“Is it really? Perhaps I want to put some
things in it.”

“Oh, I see; cargo. But where are you going
to launch it?”

“Below the stones there.”

“Well, you won’t be able to go far; there’s
an old fir across the river down yonder, and a hollow
willow has fallen in. Besides, the stream’s
too shallow; you’ll take ground before you get
half a mile.”

“Shall I?”

“Of course you will. That boat will float
six inches deep by herself, and I’m sure there’s
not six inches by the Thorns.”

“Very awkward.”

“Why didn’t you have a hide boat made,
with a willow framework and leather cover? Then
you might perhaps get down the river by hauling it
past the shallows and the fallen trees. In two
days’ time you would be in the hands of the
gipsies.”